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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Hannah Wakeford and Simon Clark, showcase the
Top Female Scientist Game they created.

Over the last month or so my co-host of The Science Hour on XpressionFM, Simon Clark, and I have
been developing a comparative card game of some of the greatest Female Scientists throughout history.

There are 32 in total across maths, physics, biology, chemistry and geology - where each card has characteristics of Innovation, Impact, Obscurity and Badassery as well as a short biography. We hope that while the public will enjoy playing the game and hopefully learn about the scientists covered, our real goal is for the cards to be used as a classroom tool - specifically to encourage girls to engage with science. Many girls are put off studying science at school because they perceive it to be a very male-dominated subject, and one problem in particular is that they seem unaware of the female heritage in science. Most people can't name more than 5 or 6 famous female scientists, and yet some stellar women have contributed so much to our understanding of science. So we wanted to try and correct that.

I am really proud of these cards and I think that they are a great way to get students of any gender involved in science. There is a huge history of scientists that we are not aware of and this is just scratching the surface of some of the most amazing scientists that have graced our world.
You can find Simon and myself on Twitter (@simonoxfphys, @stellarplanet) for more posts, or follow the #XSH.

You can also check us out assembling over 200 packets of our Top Female Scientist Cards in this time-lapse set to the Benny Hill music - just watch out for the bit where we all sync up in height order - mesmerising!

In addition for those of you who enjoy 'internetting' here are the links to our Reddit posts